Pro-Lee lawmakers fire back at commentator's 'overconfidence' remark, with one calling it 'comedy'

Writer and commentator Yu Si-min [Yonhap]
Writer and commentator Yu Si-min [Yonhap]

By Ahn Hyo-jung, The Herald Business

Several Democratic Party of Korea lawmakers sharply criticized Yu Si-min, a prominent pro-government commentator, after he compared President Lee Jae Myung's outreach efforts to "reconstruction" — suggesting the president had gone too far in dismantling the party's existing base. The lawmakers, mostly pro-Lee figures outside the party leadership, took particular aim at Yu's remark that the president's core supporters had wanted an "extension" of the existing structure, not a teardown, and his suggestion that Lee may have shown excessive confidence.

Rep. Song Young-gil, a contender for the party leadership, met reporters at Incheon International Airport on Saturday and rebuffed Yu's comments. "Isn't it the core supporters who stand firm and rally behind the president precisely when times are hard?" he said. "I believe these are people who want to protect President Lee even more when things get difficult."

Prime Minister Kim Min-seok, who is preparing to return to Yeouido, also indirectly criticized Yu at a workshop for newly elected Democratic Party women lawmakers that day. "There are cases where people criticize the president with an inflated sense of confidence — as if they were the ones who made him," Kim said. "That kind of attitude and mindset needs to be properly restrained."

Rep. Chae Hyeon-il, a close ally of Kim, rebuffed Yu on Facebook the same day. "The path the Lee Jae Myung government is walking is absolutely not a reconstruction that tears down the existing camp — I find that characterization hard to accept," he wrote. Chae argued that while the insurrection forces on the other side were trampling on the constitutional order and stoking division, "we are building an 'extension for national unity' that brings in the center and conservatives on top of the solid foundation of the democratic reform camp."

"To dismiss this fierce year-long process as 'overconfidence' is truly insulting," Chae added. "Please do not misread the desperate sense of responsibility of the person bearing ultimate responsibility for state affairs — someone determined to save a South Korea in crisis by whatever means necessary, transcending factional lines."

Rep. Jeong Jin-uk, also identified as a pro-Lee figure, raised the stakes further by calling Yu's remarks "comedy." "How does he know whether President Lee's supporters want an extension or a reconstruction?" Jeong said. "Isn't it that very confidence — the belief that he knows it all — that is excessive?"

Jeong went further, saying that rebuilding South Korea properly requires "full-scale reconstruction in a sense entirely different from the terminology Yu is using." "You surely know how difficult it is to do a real reconstruction rather than a slapdash extension," he said. "Is this your way of saying, 'Don't do too well — just patch things up'?"

Jeong then said the Democratic Party and the government could not be handed over to self-styled kingmakers who had developed a taste for cultivating two-faced operators. "I never expected them to confess so nakedly their inner belief that the Democratic Party building belongs to them and Lee Jae Myung is merely a tenant," he added.

Rep. Park Jeong described Lee's approach as an "expansion strategy," saying the president was seeking to broaden the political space by building outward from an existing three-story structure — creating room for others to add floors above or construct new buildings alongside it.


an@heraldcorp.com